New NBN policy galvanised Coalition voters

analysis The release of the Coalition’s new National Broadband Network policy had a dramatic effect upon support for Labor’s existing policy, analysis of polling data shows, with a large chunk of Coalition voters abandoning their previous long-term support for Labor’s existing NBN policy in favour of the new Coalition alternative.

If you believe the headlines swamping Australia’s media following the release of the Coalition’s rival NBN policy several weeks ago, the Australian public overwhelmingly rejected the policy. An informal poll taken by the ABC showed that 78 percent of some 5,700 readers didn’t support the new, predominantly fibre-to-the-node approach delivered by Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull. And polls taken by the ABC and Nielsen, as well as Essential Media, purported to show the same. “Poll shows voters prefer Labor’s NBN,” was the way The Sydney Morning Herald portrayed the story. Most other media outlets followed. In the wake of the announcement, with technical experts rejecting the plan wholesale and the #fraudband hashtag lampooning Turnbull and Abbott constantly, it was an easy and logical story to pursue.

And broadly,this was an accurate depiction of the situation. Polling of the Australian public continues to show — and has shown for several years now — that Labor’s NBN policy remains overwhelmingly popular with the electorate. The NBN’s popularity has always been highest amongst those who identify as Labor or Greens voters, but it has even historically enjoyed strong levels of support on the opposite side of the fence — those who vote for the Coalition.

However, if you dig into the polling data released directly after the Coalition’s policy release, and compare it with several years’ of historical data on the NBN issue, there are also several other important sub-trends which emerge.

To illustrate what I’m talking about here, let’s examine the most recent NBN polling data taken immediately prior to the Coalition releasing its alternative policy. As chronicled in this article at the time (and the raw data is available online as well), what the poll taken in March by research house Essential Media put to some 1,874 Australians was the question of whether they supported or opposed Labor’s NBN project.

In response to the question, some 35 percent of respondents indicated they strongly supported the NBN project, while some 38 percent supported it, making a total of 73 percent, up from 69 percent in a similar poll taken on 26 November last year. Only 9 percent of respondents strongly opposed the NBN policy and a further 10 percent opposed it, making only 19 percent in total of Australians which opposed the project. A further 8 percent of respondents didn’t know how they felt about the NBN.

“The decision which has the most support amongst respondents is the NBN, with 73% in favour and only 19% opposed – an increase in support since this question was last asked in November,” wrote Essential Media in its comments associated with the poll.

The detailed results also showed that while support for the NBN was strongest amongst Labor and Greens voters (88 percent in both camps supported the NBN), the majority of Coalition voters also supported the NBN, with 61 percent in total supporting the project and only 33 percent against it. Only 18 percent of Coalition voters strongly opposed the project, while a further 15 percent opposed it.

If you look at earlier polling data, especially those polls which attempted to display the differences in attitudes between different classes of voters, what you’ll find is that there has historically been a trend of increasing support for the NBN amongst voters from both sides of politics.

For example, a poll taken by Australian social and market research company Your Source in February 2012, involving about 1,000 respondents, asked the following question: “From what you’ve heard, do you favour or oppose the planned National Broadband Network (NBN)?” The response displayed an enduring level of support for the NBN, with 56 percent of total respondents supporting the NBN in total, compared with 25 percent opposed and 19 percent stating that they didn’t know.

Just 10 percent of those polled strongly opposed the NBN, while 20 percent strongly favoured the project. Amongst Labor and Greens voters who responded to the poll, support was the strongest, with 80 percent and 77 percent supporting the initiative, but 42 percent of Coalition voters also supported it (remember, twelve months later, Essential Media found an increased number: In March 2013, 61 percent of Coalition voters supported the NBN).

Over the preceding 14 months before the poll was taken, Your Source asked respondents the same question on three other occasions, with respondents in total displaying a very similar support rate for the project — ranging from 48 to 56 percent. Those opposing the project have ranged from 19 percent of respondents to 27 percent.

In order to see how things changed amongst supporters of the various parties following the Coalition’s policy launch in April this year, you need to go a little deeper into the data than was typically reported in most media articles. The best source here is a poll conducted by Nielsen of some 1,400 respondents, in the days immediately after the Coalition had its policy launch. Nielsen has made the full results available online in PDF format.

What the data shows (see the table below), is that the release of the Coalition’s NBN appeared to have polarised supporters on all political sides. When it comes to Labor and Greens voters, respondents were more likely to support Labor’s existing NBN project than they had been in the past (Nielsen found 85 percent and 86 percent support from these camps respectively, amongst those who had heard of Labor’s policy), representing even higher levels of support for the policy than had been seen amongst Labor and Greens voters previously.

In contrast, Coalition voters — up to 61 percent of whom had only a month earlier indicated to Essential Media that they supported Labor’s NBN — showed dropping levels of support for Labor’s NBN — with only 43 percent of Coalition voters supporting the Labor NBN plan (closer to levels as they had been in February 2012 as polled by Your Source). In addition, higher numbers of Coalition voters opposed the Labor plan — 48 percent, compared to 33 percent of Coalition voters opposing the plan, according to Essential Media in March, and a little higher than Your Say had shown 12 months earlier.

When it came to the Coalition’s own NBN plan, only small numbers of Labor and Greens voters who had heard of it supported the rival policy (17 percent and 20 percent respectively), while most (72 percent each) opposed it. However, amongst Coalition voters, the Coalition’s NBN plan received strong support — 60 percent — with only 26 percent being against it.

What this data appears to show is that the release of the Coalition’s NBN policy polarised voters. It further entrenched the popularity of Labor’s NBN plan amongst existing Labor and Greens voters. On the other hand, the policy appears to have been moderately successful in reducing support for Labor’s NBN policy amongst Coalition voters, and the majority of Coalition voters indicated that they did support the Coalition’s new NBN policy.

This has some interesting implications for those mocking the Coalition’s broadband plan as “#fraudband“, on social media platforms such as Twitter. It indicates that this kind of sentiment is coming from a certain proportion of the population, but does not represent the overwhelming view of the majority of the electorate as a whole. The truth is that Australians do still prefer the NBN, but that the Coalition’s alternative has also found acceptance in a wide swathe of the population, primarily those who already sympathised with the Coalition. In addition, it seems clear that increasingly those who prefer the NBN are Australians who had existing political sympathies towards Labor and the Greens.

There are some caveats to this analysis.

For starters, Nielsen noted in its analysis of the polling data that opposition to the Coalition’s broadband plan was greatest (57 percent) amongst those who claimed to have heard “a lot” about it. This mirrors the situation with previous unpopular policies in the technology portfolio such as Labor’s doomed Internet filtering project, where research consistently showed that the more educated people were about the policy, the less they liked it.

Secondly, it remains unclear what swinging voters, or those who don’t identify with any side of politics, think about the NBN. None of the polls we examined for this article went into depth on the views of this crucial part of the electorate.

In addition, it is always difficult to directly compare results between different polls taken in this manner, with different polling methodologies. In this analysis, we’ve drawn on polls taken by three different organisations — Essential Media, Your Source and Nielsen — and the differences between these polls in terms of their individual techniques may account for much of the difference between the results.

To paraphrase the character of Sarah Harding in the popular British mini-series To Play the King, it’s possible for an intelligent pollster to deliver whatever result their political master requires, to suit a given political circumstance. It’s all done by asking the right questions at the right time of the right people.

However, what the data does appear to indicate at this stage is that the current popular view of the two competing NBN policies is not one-sided. While Labor’s NBN policy is more popular overall, the Coalition and particularly Malcolm Turnbull was successful in ‘moving the needle’ of opinion, particularly amongst its own supporters, with the launch of its rival NBN policy. To the extent that many political commentators have argued that this was all that Turnbull’s policy needed to do — to ensure the Coalition’s NBN policy was seen as vaguely comparable to Labor’s own — the launch could be seen to be somewhat of a success.

181 Comments

“Renai, you’re such a Turnbull fanboi! You’ve sold out to the Coalition! You’re sucking the long schlong of corporate interests! How can you betray us this way! You’re committing bias journalisms and should give up any attempt at claiming to be objective! You’re just writing this because you’re trying to appear “balanced”!”

Nope actually what you have said is simply stating the facts unfortunately. It is a bit hard to draw trends from one poll as it is not going to be statistical significant but this is what I have expected to happen release a policy that is less bad to win back some support and try and neutralise it as an issue

– The coalitions supporters are at this stage ready to be spoon fed any justification for voting for Abbott, even though deep down, in their heart of hearts, under the armani suits and beemer convertible hoods, of plumber trucks listening to Jones on their way to asperationville, they know he is a p…s with ears…

As an addendum did the actual number of ALP/greens votes decrease in the sample. Ie a higher percentage might support the NBN plan than before, but there might also be less of them to get that percentage from?

The thing is that the FTTH NBN has more supporters by far than the FTTN alternative regardless of political persuasion. I would bet my house that the Coalition would like to have the same support for themselves in the polls.

As Renai has pointed out none of the polls look at the views of the swing voters. If swing voters determine their vote on the policies of the party then it is probable they are examining policies in some detail. It has been suggested in the article that those that have seen or heard a lot about the policies tend to favour the FTTH NBN. Which brings up the question of what influence NBN policy will have on the voting of swing voters and whether this could have an influence on the results at the next election.

I agree MW, it will take time for the Coalition policy to be absorbed as it is still relatively new, Coalition voters liked the Labor policy because they didn’t really have any alternative to compare with.

The expectation in future polls like this is that more Coaltion voters will shift to the Coalition NBN policy preference and the Labor voter preference will stay where it is.

Michael, once before we discussed FTTN and I believe you stated that people on pair gain wont benefit from FTTN because they share their copper line with someone else, do you have any stats on the amount of homes/units/businesses that are affected nationally or a rough figure ? just some idea of the amount that will miss out on FTTN if the Coalition introduct it.

Telstra list the total number of MCL systems (multi-connection lines) as about 1800. Each would have anywhere from 6-50 houses on it. So you’re talking several tens of thousands. Maybe as high as 100K, but unlikely.

Wait a second, what type of pair gain are you talking about? Those on RIMs should absolutely benefit from FTTN, far more so than most people actually, as the Node should simply replace the RIM. Each premises in that case does have its own individual copper run from the RIM, what they share is capacity over a fibre strand between the RIM and the exchange.

Where your pair gain is Analogue Multiline (AML) Carrier you are sharing copper, so in that case FTTN is worthless unless you physically replace the copper lines.

@TrevorX, the original question I asked Michael was, would the FTTN plan rectify black spots, rims and pair gain situations, we agreed that it woulf fix the first 2 but not the last. I had no idea that people on rims could also be pair gain as well, I was just trying to establish how many residences would still be left out (without Internet connection) if an FTTN plan was deployed ?

I guess I am the classic swinging voter, though I admit a leaning toward Liberal. I am not a techie, I do not game online I do not really NEED super net speeds. I do have broadband that is mostly pretty good but a good heavy downpour can slow things some.

All that said the NBN policy is one thing I pretty much completely back the Labour (sorry can’t spell) Govt on. Not sure it’s an essential but it is a great and yes even visionary project for the entire country into the future. The Malcolm version makes me just a little cynical but it is I guess a case of it’s better than nuthin and it can be upgraded to the full deal later, at a cost of course, cough. I just lurve party politics.

Kristina, just one comment on something you’ve said and others have before you.

To paraphrase you, you can’t see a need for the high speeds the real NBN will offer. This is a common failure of vision, but totally excusable because the real applications for it haven’t been invented yet.

Read what Apple said when they released the first and second iphone models and then see what the users and developers actually made it into. We never use technology in the ways those selling it to us suggest, it is always more.

To quote William Gibson “…the street finds its own uses for things”

Networks are by nature the definition of disruptive technologies, don’t fall into the trap of thinking of what they do now but only faster.

A real high speed network with universal access gives us a chance to be an active part of the future, not just spectators.

No. I just said I’m not sure I really need it. That doesn’t negate the general idea being a good one. Even I a modest user can appreciate faster downloads and generally superior service delivery. All I have to do is look at the extremely rapid rise in usage both in home or business and mobile.

People will use what’s there in ways as you say ‘sorta’ not always envisaged up front.

Its nice for someone new to come along and state their view so simply. Please dont take this as an attack or anything like that, it isnt.

In years gone past, people said the same thing with cable, ADSL2, and ADSL – they couldnt see a need for the speed. When ADSL was first coming to the fore, the nay sayers preached that the only use for it was for those dirty music pirates, who steal all their music with Napster.

To many at the time, the amazing speeds of 1 Mbps were just too ridiculous to fathom – there were no needs for such speeds at the time.

This is no different. Current needs suggest that 25 Mbps or even 50 Mbps would comfortably meet our speeds for a very big portion of the population. Sort of like how dialup was good enough for a lot of people when ADSL was being rolled out.

With that in mind, both policies are good. They adress a clear need, and go some way to neutralising the problems that have happened as technology has improved.

But fast forward 10 or 20 years, and consider what the speeds on offer will do. Looking at a webpage will be instant, not 5-10 seconds (or a minute for the unlucky) later. Shows and movies will stream instantly, not after an hour of downloading. Full motion video in high definition.

Think about what they can all do. Instant loading of webpages, you can work from home and remotely work on things half a world away. Instant streaming, no need for a digital library – for an idea of this, check out spotify, and consider a similar service for video.

Full motion video – see the working from home idea, and think of it as having an office at home with everyone else just a click away.

Its not about what we need now, its about what might be possible in the future. I expect that at some point in the not too distant future most kids will look back and wonder how we managed to put up with loading times.

Just like kids of today wonder what life was like (or not) before mobiles, or SMS, or facebook, or even Siri.

Well, no, web pages wont become instant, that was promised for ADSL as well. What really happened is that web pages became more bloated, often with less of the info you actually wanted to read, but now split over many pages as is the current fashion. It’s a truism of the IT industry that data will grow to fill the available space. Web pages will grow to still take a few seconds to download, no matter how fast the average connection is. More useless crap will be added to the few paragraphs you want to read, the method used to encode the actual info will bloat out again, or web pages will become HD videos of words slowly scrolling down the screen.

With speeds doubling every 2 years (proven historical fact), we’re eyeing off 1 Gp speeds as the standard speed by 2025. Realistic download speeds being around 1/8th that, do you think any webpage is going to be larger than 100 meg in size? Seriously?

Yes, webpages have bloated as our speeds have increased, but there is a saturation point where the most poorly coded page can only be so big. In 1999 downloading a 5 meg mp3 took 5 minutes on ADSL. Today, it takes 10 seconds. At 1 Gbps speeds its effectively instant. Other things will come along and chew that bandwidth, for sure, and some of that may be on various web pages, or anything that might replace them. I agree that the data will grow.

But our speeds will become so fast that the only delay will be the ping to the server, and effectively be instant for most browsing. I’m not talking about the latest and greatest Flash 17.2 based webpage, I’m talking about Delimiter, or news.com.au or something like that where there’s no benefit to bloating the page.

I will not vote Labour – myself and my clients would not benefit from their NBN – even if we did – I STILL WOULD NOT VOTE LABOUR!

HOW MANY people would actually vote Labour if there wasnt a NBN issue? and they are predicting a whitewash even now for LAbour.
WHY?
Because Labour has stuffed this country well and truly – If you are going to vote SOLELY of the NBN you are abusing the democratic process (if you believe in Labour – well good for you!).

The only reason Labour (Krudd) got in at “was time for a change” plus the 2pp system.
I just hope history doesn’t repeat itself -and Abbott’s NBN isn’t Hewson’s GST!

I am concerned to because your comment belong to a site/ blog where political comments are welcome.

It is your democratic right to feel strongly about the present government.The quality of your comments shows that you are rusted on LNP voter. Well, good for you but don’t come here to preach to those who vote on policies rather than a blind acceptance of a political party’s competence.

Your comment that you would not vote for Labor even if their policy was the best for you or your client, now that’s a better example of your metaphor.

Let me try slowly. If you vote based on policy then you do what you think is best. If you vote against something because of your belief that Labor is all bad and the LNP all good, not that’s cutting your nose…, is it?

“If you are going to vote SOLELY of the NBN you are abusing the democratic process”

When did you dream this? You can’t be serious. Voting on a particular issue is one’s prerogative and that is what democracy is about.

“As I stated – Vote Labour because you believe in ALL/most of their policies – not just ONE policy!”

Thank you for you advice. I am sure we all going to revise our reasons for voting for a particular party. In your case, though, you already have made up your mind. I am glad, however, you didn’t say detailed policies. If you had it would have been hard to understand why you would vote for the LNP, given that so far their policies lack a great amount of detail. You wouldn’t blindly follow Abbott (or should I say the messiah) now, would you? Is he not the one who kept telling us that ” Labour has stuffed this country well and truly “?

Finally, could you dispense with Hahaha, it does nothing to improve your argument and makes you look childish?

I really don’t think that the Labor government under Gillard has been very good but despite that I will vote for them solely because of the NBN.”

Now thats cutting your nose off!

You vote any way you like

In MY OPINION – almost all of Labour’s policies are bad – except MAYBE just maybe one – however – Im not going to vote for them just on that!
– Mining tax – wow that worked
– Kneejerk reactions HURTING AUSTRALIANS (Live cattle export – killing off a local industry – how was that going to stop foreign abattoirs from abusing animals (I was as saddened/horrified as a much as anyone) – however the industry is dealing with the present situation a lot better!
– I could go on

The way the fed govt is going Aust will end up like QLD!

But dont worry – while rotting slowly away with a bungled health system & WA is bled dry with little GST funding, farmers getting kicked off their land and mining co’s pulling up stakes and going off shore instead of vertically integration – rest assured you can sit down in front of your computer and download the next episode of reality TV drivel in 10 seconds flat, or tell some 12 Y/O US kid that you owned not only him but his mother in Halo 5!
(That last bit was tongue in cheek – a little bit)
I’m not terribly fond of Abbott the man (he has improved this year – I must say) , or of their NBN – however they can do a lot better than the current mob.
Labour got more credit than they deserved when it came to riding out the GFC – where did you think they got the money from (and that’s when Iron Ore was@ ~ $35/t – its now well over $100 – still Labour cant make money!)

Im voting LNP what what I see for the right reasons – You VOTE the same (in the party not because of just one policy OR person) whether it be Labour or any other party – not like Josh!

Let’s get the basics straight first. \You didn’t dictate “who” we vote for, but you dictated “how” we evaluate who to vote for….

“Vote Labour because you believe in ALL/most of their policies – not just ONE policy!” …

&

“You VOTE the same (in the party not because of just one policy OR person) whether it be Labour or any other party”

If this isn’t dictating how one should vote, what is?…

If someone wants to vote Labor because they like Julia’s hair or Coalition because Tony is a volunteer bushfire fighter, that’s their prerogative…regardless of how much you or anyone wants to dictate otherwise.

Sorry – there should of been “/most of”
in
“The point is – as I keep saying – Vote for the party and for all “/MOST of” their policies not the person or Solely on the NBN! Whether it be LABOR or any other party.” ….Was a late Sunday nite!

Which is directed at the first post “Josh” – its his prerogative as you say, but is it a good choice though? There is more to running a country than having a better (if you believe) NBN package.

Dictating – that’s a bit harsh, advising, requesting, pleading .. a bit more like it – don’t waste your vote on one policy if you don’t believe or have faith in the party (or ” really don’t think that the Labor government under Gillard has been very good” – in this case).

Different perspective
“I really don’t think that Dr Bob has been very good running the entire Hospital but I am going to vote for him to stay because he is promising a better x-ray department – by the way I work in the x-ray department ”
where I would say
“I think Dr Bob should go – even though I work in the x-ray dept and he his promising super duper fast x-ray machines & diagnoses tools – as I think his running of the hospital is not very good – jeesh I or a loved one might need surgery down the track! I THINK Dr Smith will do a better job!”

You cant be much of a techie if you think your corporate clients cant benefit from the NBN – I was customer delivery manager for an ISP for a couple of years and the amount of corporate branch offices running from 2MB ISDN, xDSL and the occasional Microwave Services are quite staggering – ALL of these business’s could take advantage of the NBN to:

A/ Improve WAN service reliability
B/ Improve WAN service speeds to the branch office’s and increase productivity
C/ Reduce on-site IT equipment installations to the bare minimum which will save them money
C/ Reduce their WAN Service costs by getting better services for less money and further contributing to reducing their IT costs.

Think about the above next time you claim your clients cant benefit from the NBN.

They wont benefit because they wont get it – unless ADSL1 equivalent Sat @ 110plus ms lag – qualifies as NBN speeds (with promise of ADSL2+ speeds later)
Others are just in 3G range (which is pretty poor during the afternoons) and will be on the bottom of the list for 4G (if it reaches).
One client is 15 minutes away from a major suburb (right alongside an exchange – which probably will never get fiber due to lack of connections) the closest Telstra tower doesn’t point in their direction & a telstra external yagi still isnt 100%

Myself – luckily found second hand Canopy gear and a “Friend” to host my ADSL2 connection – the only way I can run my business from my office. The exchange is on a microwave/wireless link – no where near where the fiber will run.
Was a 2-way Sat as well as a Canopy wireless installer.
I Guarantee that I can and will provide all my clients with the best possible broadband connection.
Small businesses cannot afford Microwave links/ xDSL/ISDN even if they were available.

djos – you obviously don’t have anything more valid to say so don’t bother.
You vote the way you like
Im going to vote any way I like.
People who don’t believe in the party but vote for them just because of the NBN or hair colour, – well that’s very short sighted in my opinion.
Im looking at the wider picture – who should run this country – not just NBN – my opinion its not Labor
That’s the crux of this sub-thread

So go ahead, attack my credentials as much as you want – it really doesn’t bother me at all – all it tells me and other people reading this is what type of character your are.

Wait wait wait…..you vote SOLELY based on which party you want to run the country…..NOT what their policies are???

Wow. I knew people did that….but I’ve never met one.

Each to their own, but that makes ZERO sense to me. I don’t bloody care who runs the country as long as the POLICIES they have to do it are sensible, provide economic growth and security and don’t waste our tax dollars. A monkey could run the country as far as I care, as long as the monkey had a better accent than Julia Gillard….but at least she speaks well….as long as he followed sensible policy.

Partisanship has no place in true Democracy. That’s half the problem with our system.

@concerned, your arguments are flimsy at best and you keep showing yourself up, I’m just pointing out the flaws in your weak arguments.

The nbn is not the only reason I’m voting labor this coming election, it’s just the icon on the cake for me! As a swing voter I’ve looked at what the Libs are planning to do and I don’t like what I see, here is a nice long quote from a recent SMH article summing up the major points:

What is surprising is the extent to which Coalition policies will result in a significant redistribution of wealth upwards rather than downwards. Consider the following Coalition policies:
■ Lower the tax-free threshold from $18,200 to $6000. This will drag more than one million low-income earners back into the tax system. It will also increase the taxes for 6 million Australians earning less than $80,000.
■ Abolish the low-income superannuation contribution. This will reimpose a 15 per cent tax on superannuation contributions for people earning less than $37,000.
■ Abolish the proposed 15 per cent tax on income from superannuation above $100,000 a year. The combined effect of these two superannuation changes is that 16,000 high-income earners with superannuation savings in excess of $2 million will get a tax cut while 3.6 million workers earning less than $37,000 will pay more than $4 billion extra in tax on their super over the next four years.
■ Abolish the means test on the private health insurance rebate. This will deliver a $2.4 billion tax cut over three years for individuals earning more than $84,001 a year, or couples earning more than $168,001. People on lower incomes will receive no benefit.
■ Introduce a paid parental leave scheme that replaces a mother’s salary up to $150,000. To put it crudely, this means a low-income mum gets about $600 per week while a high-income mum gets close to $3000.
■ Abolish the means-tested Schoolkids Bonus that benefits 1.3 million families by providing up to $410 for each primary school child and up to $820 for each high school child.
These policies will result in low- and middle-income earners paying billions of dollars more in tax while those on higher incomes receive billions in tax cuts and new benefits. Rather than take from the rich and give to the poor, the Coalition policies are a case of take from the poor and give to the rich. And this remains the case even taking into account the flow-on effects of the abolition of the carbon price and the funding of the Coalition’s paid maternity leave through a tax on big companies.

My point is most ppl dont vote one way or another over a single issue, if you dig deeper you’ll see that to be the case.

Personally I liked John Howard a lot despite some of his mistakes (no one is perfect) and his policies where mostly good for Oz (GST etc) but Tony Abbott is more Tea party than Lib/Conservative and many ppl are starting to recognise that. Dont be surprised if we get another hung parliment that falls the ALP’s way for the same reasons as last time – Katter and Palmer are likely to have a big impact on the balance of power in the next parliment imo.

Yes we have drifted a bit off topic but I do think it’s fair to say the minority gov has delivered some good things like the foundations to reform pokies that would have never happened under either party if they had a majority – I also think the carbon price/tax and coming 2015 ETS is a far better system than what Kev and Mal cooked up thanks to input from Tony W and Rob O. There are a few other worthwhile things happening too but I think we may have done this topic to death. :-p

Totally agree, the Coalition’s NBNodework has done it’s ultimate aim: it’s good enough that it will stop most Coalition voters from going elsewhere just over the NBN issue. Now they just need to recapture voters put off by Abbott personally <.<

That logic doesn’t work. The 2PP vote includes swinging voters. The 55% of LNP likely voters include some portion of swing voters who simply change their mind based on the policies they see come out.

Trying to predict what % are swinging voters is fruitless. Assuming that those 5% WILL now definitely vote LNP at the election is also a misnomer. Polls do not poll the same people. The 5% from last month will be a different % of swing voters from last month.

There is only one poll that counts.

I don’t understand the preoccupation of who is going to win. I want best policy. I don’t give a frig who runs the country. Tony and Julia are almost as bad as each other.

In the period of these polls there has not been a 5% changes in between the first poll to now as the first poll was in 2011 after support had dropped the change from each poll is well within the margin of error as I stated before it is not statistically significant

How many people would actually vote Labour if there wasn’t any NBN polices from any party?
They are facing a whitewash at the moment – Their current rein has been disastrous!

Actually the right statement is actually – People will actually cut off their noses (and everyone elses’ [in relation to the poor performance of the Labour Govt]) to get a (somewhat dubious) promise of fast broadband.

Cheers, It is good to see a proper analysis of statistics; especially comparing different polls and trying to draw the overall trends out from them as a whole.

It would also be interesting to revisit the issue in 1-2 months closer to the election when there is another 2+ Fairfax / Nielson & NewsPoll survey results to provide more data. Possibly could look at whether the NBN is a critical issue for swing voters or is it more of a niche issue?

The simple fact of the matter is that the Coalition’s policy would be a great loss for Australia – I think Malcolm Turnbull himself recognises that. But he would rather hamstring Australia’s future for the sake of getting into power than support Labor’s vision – and this is the kind of person people consider as responsible enough to be in power? And let’s not even speak of Tony Abbott.

What information do you base this on?
– The fact that NBNCo are predicting in the Corporate Plan that under Labor 50% of fibre connections will be 12Mbps whereas under the Coalition the minimum speed will be 25Mbps rising to 50Mbps in 2019
– The strong likelihood that the Coalition plan will be delivered cheaper and more quickly
– The fact that for most people under the Coalition fibre will be available sooner to those who require it for a reasonable cost when compared with 1Gbps AVC charges of $150/month under Labor’s plan.
– The fact that NBNCo are predicting under Labor’s plan less than 5% will have 1Gbps plans in 2028

Yes, FTTP would be nice across the whole of Australia, but Labor’s NBN is decidedly second rate when you compare it with Google Fibre. it should trouble everyone, when the Coalition plan based around FTTN promises faster speeds for the majority than Labor’s FTTP plan.

He see’s being locked in at 25Mbps as better than having a choice of 12Mbps-1Gbps and that paying more for that 25Mbps than Labors (even though Labors is a wholesale cost spead over multiple users) 25Mbps is OK cause it’s LNP (who will actually be charging $4 more per user)…or something…a lot of his arguments don’t make much sense /shrug

Still addicted to the old “Labor predicted 50%….” and “NBN does not compare to Google fibre”.

Notice you still push these points wherever you can.

And now this masterful conclusion:

” it should trouble everyone, when the Coalition plan based around FTTN promises faster speeds for the majority than Labor’s FTTP plan.’

Sorry to disappoint you but a conclusion based on false premises is also false. What puzzles me is your motivation. Do you think that if you keep repeating the same distorted points that, somehow, people will start to believe what you say? This may work with simple souls and for politicians but it won’t work here, so give up.

The conclusion is based on the assertion that the majority of residences waiting to get off ADSL2+ or slower will do so sooner under a Coalition plan than Labor.

The Coalition goal of having all residences on 25 Mbps-100Mbps by 2016 is yet to be proven of course, but we won’t know that until the next election after this one, then we can boot the Coalition out and have another go.

The Coalition goal of having all residences on 25 Mbps-100Mbps by 2016 is yet to be proven of course, but we won’t know that until the next election after this one, then we can boot the Coalition out and have another go.

Great. So you’d rather they potentially waste $10 billion trying to give us FTTN by the end of their first term and failing, then pick up FTTH again then….instead of just continuing it now….

How is that even vaguely rational thinking??

You can argue all you like the NBN is going slow and won’t be finished on time. It might not be. But that’s better than wasting billions of dollars on a system that will likely result in not significantly higher speeds than many have now in 2/3 of the time taken to give them all 1Gbps (should they want it).

I don’t see the rational analysis in that. I don’t have an inherent issue with FTTN in Australia. But to do it RIGHT for a serious consideration of an NBN, it should’ve been started at or before the current NBN and be done by now or in the next 2 years. Then in 2016 we could be looking at upgrading those areas already outstripping demand for what FTTN can provide. It is, quite simply, too late.

“The conclusion is based on the assertion that the majority of residences waiting to get off ADSL2+ or slower will do so sooner under a Coalition plan than Labor.”

Just to help you with your reading/comprehension difficulties, this was the conclusion:

“the Coalition plan based around FTTN promises faster speeds for the majority than Labor’s FTTP plan”.

So not only do you make assumptions about what I say, you also try to change what was being said. When you read something, please concentrate on what is written and don’t let your imagination guide your thoughts. You will be amazed how it helps making conversation coherent.

FTTN is faster than ADSL2+ or slower, the point is if you can get OFF ADSL2+ or slower much sooner than getting onto Labor FTTH the point is correct, the majority by 2016 will be on faster speeds much sooner than the majority on the Labor plan (assuming the Coalition goal is met).

The Labor NBN timeline goal is to have the last Telstra exchange shut down and everyone migrated OFF ADSL2+ or lower by 2023 to meet their 93% residences passed target.

Even IF the Coalition are correct in their timing, something that is highly contested, they are suggesting 65% of the FTTN footprint (approx. 40% of households or around 4.3 million) will have “minimum 25Mbps” by 2016 from FTTN. Another, say, 10% would, supposedly, concurrently, have acces to 100Mbps or more via fibre. But that has little if anything to do with the Coalition plan. It’s just the failover from the NBN plus the first few areas found to be too ratshit for copper to be used. Plus Greenfields (not Coalition doing either). And, supposedly, somehow, the 30% inside the HFC footprint would have access to “up to” 100Mbps….though we don’t know how or how much that will cost, or when really. Plus of course, wireless and Satellite, which had nothing to do with the Coalition also.

So the only number that can be counted, is the Coalition’s FTTN footprint reach- it is the only part of their plan that involves any work, other than if they pay Telstra to upgrade HFC to MDUs and for congestion and we’ve no information on that. So just over 4 million, assuming it goes to plan, for the FTTN footprint, in 2016.

Should the NBN begin to progressively ramp up in rollout, something we haven’t seen yet, but has been promised, but 2016 (FY) NBNCo. plan on passing 4.6 million homes with fibre. Plus the wireless and satellite.

By any measure, the NBN is FAR more likely to pass that many than the Coalition, even running slow as it is right now, because it is up and running. If nothing else, simply because of the logistics of changing from FTTN to FTTH, regulatory issues, business and training required and new designs and trials, the Coalition policy is unlikely to achieve even close to that target of 3-4 million premises covered by 2016. It’s feasible neither will the NBN. But then, at least those that WERE covered, would be covered with a technology they can use for the next 30 years. Not the next 5-8.

Firstly that the coalition, if elected, will be able to accomplish what they are promising in the given time frame. This is problematic, given the hurdles in its path (Negotiating copper cost, surveying and assessing suitability of the copper, getting DA for the boxes….)

Secondly, that the majority of people will end up with faster speed than ADSL2 and if so whether the increase would have been worth $30 billion.

Lastly, in order to save a couple of years, let’s sacrifice the next few decades or spend much more and end up with what is being done now. That makes a lot of sense…..possibly to some but not to me.

Only after Tony gets a second term, but not in the initial “25Mbps” incarnation of FTTN where they’ll be getting the same speeds as their ADSL2+ (unless they are lucky enough to get FTTP…like everyone would under the current NBN).

*sigh*
The Liberal plan is putting out enough nodes that the last mile distance will be enough to guarantee a 25Mbit connection. Unless you can find someone with an ADSL2+ connection that exceeds 25Mbit, then ADSL2+ customers will see improved capabilities with the Liberals plans.

The real question with their plan is “Will the number of nodes need to be increased?” and “how much of the copper last mile will need to be replace?”. And how much will those actually cost the overall program.

I’ll repeat this again, the Liberal’s policy is for FTTN is 25Mbit upto whatever your line can handle.

Not true Tom. Malcom has said they will be using “about” 50,000 nodes, where the current NBN is using 60,000 GPON’s (and fibre can cover much further areas than xDSL in any incarnation).

So…either they need a lot more nodes than Malcolm has suggested (which means his costings aren’t as robust as they should be) or they wont actually have the coverage they have suggested. Either way, there is still work to be done on his plan…

Although it is true that it is a stated “aim” that 25Mbps is the initial target.

“The Coalition will deliver fast, affordable and reliable broadband years sooner than Labor. Our aim is that everyone in the nation should have access to broadband with download data rates of between 25 and 100 megabits per second by 2016, and between 50 and 100 megabits per second by the end of 2019 in 90 per cent of the fixed line footprint – although it should be noted this goal in part depends on NBNCo delivering its current satellite and fixed wireless solutions on time and on budget.”

Not sure why their stated “aim” of 90% fixed line speeds of 25/50 and 100Mbps by 2016/2018 are dependent on satellite and wireless solutions though…surely “fixed line” is the copper/fibre portions…

You are more than just a bit off with your points there not to mention your outrage at a $150 AVC charge for 1gbps speeds is contradicted by your subsequent stat that only 5% of users will be paying for it.

“Yes, FTTP would be nice across the whole of Australia, but Labor’s NBN is decidedly second rate when you compare it with Google Fibre”

But I wanted to address your Google Fibre claim because I hear it being used quite a bit by people as a point of comparison of what a private company can do for us. Firstly let me point out Google is a private company and acting in a private company’s best interests. So you would expect it to have rolled out 1gbps services to as many people as possible yes? The last confirmed number was 820 active connections. It’s even slower than NBNco by about 50 times.

Google fibre is a marketing exercise and also provides Google with information on usage patterns on a high performance network.

It has some noble aspirations to change the status quo of the US telco industry but it is not going to be a mass rollout and they are certainly not going to come over to Australia and gift us with a high performance network.

> You are more than just a bit off with your points there not to mention your outrage at a $150 AVC charge for 1gbps speeds is contradicted by your subsequent stat that only 5% of users will be paying for it.

Where is the contradiction? If NBNCo removed the speed tiers, everyone on fibre would have 1Gbps.

> But I wanted to address your Google Fibre claim because I hear it being used quite a bit by people as a point of comparison of what a private company can do for us. Firstly let me point out Google is a private company and acting in a private company’s best interests. So you would expect it to have rolled out 1gbps services to as many people as possible yes? The last confirmed number was 820 active connections. It’s even slower than NBNco by about 50 times.

When was the last confirmed number of active connections? Kansas City was only selected in March 30, 2011 versus NBN connections being installed in Tasmania in 2010. Trials are normally conducted prior to a full roll out. NBNCo have followed the same process. Is this just FUD or dodging the real benefits of Google Fibre?

> Google fibre is a marketing exercise and also provides Google with information on usage patterns on a high performance network.
It has some noble aspirations to change the status quo of the US telco industry but it is not going to be a mass rollout and they are certainly not going to come over to Australia and gift us with a high performance network.

Says Ryan. Since Google Fibre was announced it has already added 5 more locations. Google Fibre is more commonly explained as an exercise in forcing cable companies in the USA to provide better connectivity. There is no reason that Google would not want to do the same in Australia.

You are also ignoring the key fact that Labor happily released a Corporate Plan where 50% of fibre connections are 12Mbps and that this wasn’t revised in the updated version. Compare that with the Coalition minimum speed of 25Mbps rising to 50Mbps in 2019, with fibre available for those who want it.

If we accept the argument that Google Fibre exists primarily to provide a way for customers to reach Google’s services, then it is not unreasonable to consider that Google may be interested in supporting the deployment of a wholesale network in Australia which provides similar performance. We have already seen Google comment on the NBN.

A super-fast network in Australia would provide a compelling case for Google to use in lobbying the USA government.

Yes, Google Fibre in Australia is far-fetched, but I use it as a model of what Australia should be getting, and to demonstrate the inadequacies of Labor’s plan.

Yes, Google Fibre in Australia is far-fetched, but I use it as a model of what Australia should be getting, and to demonstrate the inadequacies of Labor’s plan.

Labor’s plan doesn’t have the inadequacies you mention. Your model is based off the idea that everything will stay precisely as predicted, both up AND down from predictions and therefore we’ll all be paying $110 for broadband ONLY, in 2021 and at 50Mbps, cause we can’t afford it otherwise.

A false conclusion is always reached when starting from a false assumption. Your original assumption that “fettered” GPON, rather than either unlimited speed GPON or, even worse, unlimited PTP, for all, is the best possible way forward for a large, sparsly populated country, lead to your false conclusion that therefore the Labor NBN is flawed.

> Labor’s plan doesn’t have the inadequacies you mention. Your model is based off the idea that everything will stay precisely as predicted, both up AND down from predictions and therefore we’ll all be paying $110 for broadband ONLY, in 2021 and at 50Mbps, cause we can’t afford it otherwise.

As you well know, the financial health of Labor’s NBN is based on heavy discounting at the start with rising ARPU. Labor can do this because they plan for demand to grow much more quickly than unit pricing falls.

> A false conclusion is always reached when starting from a false assumption. Your original assumption that “fettered” GPON, rather than either unlimited speed GPON or, even worse, unlimited PTP, for all, is the best possible way forward for a large, sparsly populated country, lead to your false conclusion that therefore the Labor NBN is flawed.

I didn’t say it was the best way forward. I said Google Fibre was the best technical solution. Now that you have accepted that Labor’s plan is a compromise from a technical perspective, the argument can move to the more reasonable basis of what level of compromise is acceptable.

The fact remains that the Coalition is promising 25Mbps (50Mbps in 2019) which is quadruple Labor’s minimum speed. Based on Labor’s projections, this means that 50% of Australians who would be connected to Fibre under the Labor plan would receive faster speeds at arguably cheaper pricing. For those who want fibre the costs are not unreasonable when compared with Labor’s AVC charges.

Would I prefer FTTP for 100%? Yes! However the reality is that Labor NBN policy has significant flaws that could have been resolved if meaningful debate was engaged in back in 2009.

“The fact remains that the Coalition is promising 25Mbps (50Mbps in 2019) which is quadruple Labor’s minimum speed. Based on Labor’s projections, this means that 50% of Australians who would be connected to Fibre under the Labor plan would receive faster speeds at arguably cheaper pricing. For those who want fibre the costs are not unreasonable when compared with Labor’s AVC charges.”

I’m sorry you lost me there Matthew. Why would this theoretical minimum matter?

You have been harping on since the beginning that the biggest reason the NBN will not be profitable because of the estimate that 50% will opt for the lowest tier because they don’t care for speeds. Doesn’t this technically make the FTTN “more expensive” as your are building infrastructure that is “not needed”?

> I’m sorry you lost me there Matthew. Why would this theoretical minimum matter?

The justification for the NBN is that is supposed to revolutionise Australia for services like eHealth, eLearning, remote work, etc. If 50% of fibre connections are slower than HFC, 4G, FTTN and approaching half of ADSL2+ connections then one should question if it will achieve that.

> You have been harping on since the beginning that the biggest reason the NBN will not be profitable because of the estimate that 50% will opt for the lowest tier because they don’t care for speeds.

I’ve not raised a concern with the profitability of NBNCo based on 50% opting for 12Mbps. I have raised concerns with a sizeable chuck of the 50% abandoning fixed line connections altogether because a 4G service is cheaper and faster for low quota users.

My concerns are more about providing access to game-changing speeds of 100Mbps and faster for all Australians, particularly those lower on the socio-economic scales. For example there are huge benefits for people (including kids) with restricted mobility being able to interact with others in HD, but you need 100Mbps and higher to really benefit.

> Doesn’t this technically make the FTTN “more expensive” as your are building infrastructure that is “not needed”?
Why overbuild for a service that won’t be used?

My concerns are more about providing access to game-changing speeds of 100Mbps and faster for all Australians, particularly those lower on the socio-economic scales. For example there are huge benefits for people (including kids) with restricted mobility being able to interact with others in HD, but you need 100Mbps and higher to really benefit.

I think you’re a bit misguided backing the Liberal plan if your stated concerns are true then. Under the Liberals, the only guarantee of 100Mbps is if you pay for the fibre to be laid ($3500-$5000?), while under the Labor plan, they’ll be able to get up to 1Gbps by just getting an RSP plan.

Which do you think would be more affordable for a family that already has increased costs of looking after a person with a disability?

As you well know, the financial health of Labor’s NBN is based on heavy discounting at the start with rising ARPU. Labor can do this because they plan for demand to grow much more quickly than unit pricing falls.

1- Can you stop saying Labor? We already know you love conservative politics, but LABOR is not building the NBN. NBNCo. is. LABOR did not make the business case for an FTTH NBN. The business case has had few major critics. It is based on what has happened over the past decade. Some might say that’s nieve. I’d say that’s the best data you could go on.

I didn’t say it was the best way forward. I said Google Fibre was the best technical solution. Now that you have accepted that Labor’s plan is a compromise from a technical perspective, the argument can move to the more reasonable basis of what level of compromise is acceptable.

It’s not a compromise. It is the best LARGE SCALE technical solution. PTP is far beyond what even most SMEs need, let alone residential areas for the next 20 years or so (beyond 1Gbps) and that is primarily the cover of the NBN. GPON gives up to 1Gbps now, for the small portion of those who need it (with a small amount of PTP for very-high end uses) with, essentially, infinite options for upgrades, including full-fat PTP, when required. It is the best technical solution based on fibre, with a clear upgrade path. PTP is unnecessary for 99.9% of all residential and small business needs. It will likely be needed beyond 2030.

The fact remains that the Coalition is promising 25Mbps (50Mbps in 2019) which is quadruple Labor’s minimum speed.

That is a logical fallacy that you have been pushing for months now. The NBN allows AS LOW as 12Mbps. It GUARANTEES 93% of the footprint can access 1Gbps (within supply possibilities) by December. The Coalition policy allows LOWER than 25Mbps (we don’t know how low) and ONLY GUARANTEES 25Mbps. That is entirely different to what you just said.

Based on Labor’s projections, this means that 50% of Australians who would be connected to Fibre under the Labor plan would receive faster speeds at arguably cheaper pricing. For those who want fibre the costs are not unreasonable when compared with Labor’s AVC charges.

Can you STOP saying Labor??? NBNCo. came up with the business case. NBNCo. control the wholesale costs (under regulation). NOT LABOR. There is NO possible rational line of thought that leads to that conclusion. The Coalition WANT their prices to be $38 wholesale. That doesn’t mean they can or will. And that would STILL be higher than retail on the NBN for 12Mbps, which is what you keep saying 50% of Australians WILL get. That is A PREDICTION. It is based mainly on the idea that many people will take phone only services, which is not unreasonable. The Coalition policy has NO information on normal phone services. So saying it will be cheaper for 50% of Australians is completely false.

Please, if you’re going to argue, use rational points. Taking a prediction as fact and the slowest speed and putting against another prediction as fact and a GUARANTEED minimum speed is completely misleading and any conclusions arrived at from it are equally as misleading.

I don’t dispute that direct connection is capable of delivering faster speeds than GPON. I think your argument that it is better because it is uncapped and cheaper is irrelevant because it is a subsidised service that a company is using to promote an image and do research – nothing more at this stage.

Just been doing some digging on information for you Mathew. The total Kansas project (which is the only one with any physical work going on if you ignore the service they just bough in Provo, Utah) is intended to serve 12,000 people at a cost of $94M. Apart from trials, customers have only just started being connected. The 820 active users came from a financial assessment about 3 weeks ago. I may be recalling it incorrectly but given the final scope of the project and its construction status, it sounds about right.

How have you not been banned for continually posting this misrepresentation of the facts? You’ve been corrected on this rubbish multiple times in multiple locations.

What information do you base this on?
– The fact that NBNCo are predicting in the Corporate Plan that under Labor 50% of fibre connections will be 12Mbps whereas under the Coalition the minimum speed will be 25Mbps rising to 50Mbps in 2019

The fact is that NBNCo will be guaranteeing everyone connected to fibre a minimum of 100Mbps. You can sign up for cheaper plans that limit you to a slower speed than the minimum guarantee. NBNCo’s business plan assumes that 50% of people will decide to sign up for the cheapest option. Those people will still have 100Mbps connections available to them.

With the Coalition plan you get a guarantee of 25Mbps, if you’re lucky based on your distance from the node, the condition of your copper line, and a whole bunch of other factors you might get a faster speed.

– The strong likelihood that the Coalition plan will be delivered cheaper and more quickly
Only based on Malcolm and Tony’s assumptions. And those assumptions seem pretty farfetched to me. I don’t see a single mention of the massive network characterisation project that would be required to determine the current state of the last mile. And just how much of it will need to be upgraded, and how much that will cost.

– The fact that for most people under the Coalition fibre will be available sooner to those who require it for a reasonable cost when compared with 1Gbps AVC charges of $150/month under Labor’s plan.

More farfetched assumptions about the Liberals plan. In fact the Liberal parties policy doesn’t even mention AVC charges. Its just as reasonable to say those charges will be worse under the Liberals with their private industry driven leanings.

– The fact that NBNCo are predicting under Labor’s plan less than 5% will have 1Gbps plans in 2028
Yes, FTTP would be nice across the whole of Australia, but Labor’s NBN is decidedly second rate when you compare it with Google Fibre. it should trouble everyone, when the Coalition plan based around FTTN promises faster speeds for the majority than Labor’s FTTP plan.

Once again, that 5% is a prediction on take up for financial purposes. The 1Gbps connection will be available to everyone on fibre after they roll out required transmission upgrades. And thus your conclusion based on that number is pure rubbish.

> Abbotts got huge problems with his marbles, people that vote for him are going to get what they deserve the rest of us in 3 years will have to march on Parliament House and New Limited with torches!

As against Julia who has plunged the country into debt with poor decisions and spending based on irresponsible revenue growth expectations?
– Mining tax that doesn’t bring in revenue. She didn’t take treasury to the meeting with the miners to negotiate the tax, because she was looking for a political fix so we shouldn’t be surprised the miners walked away smiling and haven’t been paying tax (revaluing your assets at the top of the mining boom and then depreciating helps)
– Carbon tax that is very expensive compared to prices in Europe
– School building fund that benefited private schools significantly more than public schools (although Labor State Education Departments are responsible for skimming vast sums off the top)

Or are you suggesting he’s taking ‘sponsorship’ to put it politely to change his position?

Renai’s biggest fault appears to be a touch of naivety and a lack of an appropriate level of skepticism when dealing with politicians (never take them at face value, they will lie to your face every time).

He hasn’t realised the liberal policy is a tactic with no intention of implementation. Time will show him otherwise.

Actually IMO the winning point for many Coalition supporters is the option to pay $Thousands for FTTP and the fact that the FTTN will be a little flakey dependant on location etc

I have had discussions on other sites with anti FTTP NBN commentors and it has eventually boiled down to their point of view that they have worked hard and sacrificed to reach a comfortable if not very well off secure situation in life and are aggrieved that the losers as they see the lower income sector, can have FTTP.

This fits their sensibilities, those worthy individuals and their families can have the benefits their wealth can provide.

Sad and ignores the fact that many of our achievers have come from humble backgrounds, plus the major benefits of the ubiquitous model are just that it is ubiquitous, stable and reliable and you gets what you pays for that enables the synergy

the best analogy of the coalitions nbn is the f3 freeway (in nsw). Its fast and effecient right until you hit the pacific hwy at warhoonga where it turns into a crawl. Because thats what the coalition nbn will be like. Also we all are focusing on download however the real benefit will be upload speed which will enable regular people to provide live services from their own home efficiently…this is where labors nbn is spot on. What these stats tell me is unfortunately most coalition voters are very unimaginitive…

Not sure if this allowed on here but perhaps I could help them a bit here are some visions of possible future tech bought to you by companies like Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Nokia etc. I am not affiliated with any of these companies but I do use there tech.

It all comes down to who can sell there NBN project to the masses.
Labor has made a dog breakfast of it all.
Still that is Labor and after seeing the deficit what will sit in voters minds is can we really afford such a scheme.
Which is a mute point as it looks like the Liberals will be voted in so the alternative NBN from them will most probably happen anyway.

Labor’s problem (one of many) is that they did not trademark ‘NBN’.
Like ‘Hi-Fi’, the term meant something special once, but salesman now describe tinny-sounding TVs as Hi-Fi.

“Can I sell you a car, Mr Coalition Voter? You don’t have to go down the road to those horrible Labor people to buy one of their Holden Volts (which you don’t understand anyway) because we now have a new line of Trabants. They both have four wheels so they are both cars, aren’t they?”

The problem is that this poll asks whether people oppose or support a plan. It doesn’t ask which plan they prefer.

So the people who oppose the LNP plan fall into two camps. One is the group who thinks it’s not as good as Labor’s plan and oppose it for that reason, even though they’d still support the LNP plan if the Labor plan was not on offer, and those people who would oppose both plans.

> However, amongst Coalition voters, the Coalition’s NBN plan received strong support — 60 percent — with only 26 percent being against it.

In amongst those 60 percent are also some LNP voters who do support the LNP proposal, but among coalition voters there are near enough 43 percent who support the Labor plan. 26% are presumably against either. That means one interpretation of the numbers here is that 26% don’t support either, 43% prefer the Labor plan (this being a maximum) and about 31% support the Liberal plan. This is a maximum in the support for the Labor plan among LNP voters that may be interpreted out of this survey, due to the way it was run, but even if that’s far off the mark, it still means that it’s possible to read out a majority support for the Labor NBN among coalition voters out of this poll. Even when the poll, on its front face, says 48% oppose, 43% support.

It’s not sensible to read that much into the poll, when the question itself gives a result that represents two highly divergent views. You’d want a different poll, with a very simple question, which is which do you support.

I made this point over in the comments of this Commsday article too a while ago:

” it’s possible for an intelligent pollster to deliver whatever result their political master requires, to suit a given political circumstance. It’s all done by asking the right questions at the right time of the right people.”

It is not just about this. The way questions are phrased determine the scope of the answers. Even without attempts to influence the result, you can still get distorted results. The most important part of a survey is the design of the questionnaire. As some have already pointed out, people were not asked which policy they preferred. Some may prefer one policy, without opposing the other.

The section that asked how much people have heard about the NBN, does not necessarily mean that they are better educated about the topic. It would likely be the case if most of their information came for MSM. A better question may have been: how much do you understand about the NBN. Furthermore, offering “a lot” or “a little” as possible answer is rather black or white and doesn’t allow those in the middle. Again, a better choice may have been to rate knowledge on a scale 0-5, for example.

Finally, it must remembered that most polls are rarely designed for in depth analysis. They more often than not involve a lengthy multi topic questionnaire limited to a few questions for each topic so as to ensure potential respondents’ willingness to participate.

The biggest issue is that pretty much the rest of the media doesnt seem to be allowed to release anything that shows the problems and holes in the coalitions plan – most likely due to vested interests.

If only more people read articles from places like this, they would be a whole lot better informed.

Like they say, the only poll that counts is the one on election day.
With Labor introducing a new tax, more people might be jumping towards Liberal on Sept (my thoughts, no evidence to back that up) :P

Turnbull has delivered a policy that responds to the concerns raised in a review report generate post defeat at the last election.

It is precisely because the NBN has become a political football (both labor and the coaliation have been using it as a football for years now) that we now see a policy, from a party where Abbott has previously stated there shall be none.

Of course staunchly liberal supporters will like the policy. They’re not really the key vote concern though (again, the same is true for staunch labor voters).

It is the swing voter that can make or break an election outcome. Turnbull only ever needed to have something “good enough” to alay fears. To make it seem safe for swing votes to Liberal again.

This report is effectively a score card for preaching to the converted.

Lets see what happens longer term though when those who have apparently switched their support to the Coaltions second rate FTTN policy read the analysis, and see the important questions asked to illustrate the holes in Turnbulls policy
There is a long time before the election. There is a long time to analyse and ask questions. Turnbull is still avoiding the harder ones. It shouldnt take too much pushing from Conroy to expose the problems and hidden costs with the Coaltions policy. There is a reason Turnbull refused to do a CBA before the election to develop his policy. He should have details from a full CBA to support his policy if he wanted any real credibility. As it stands, he has done exactly what he has long criticised Labor about – picked a winner and developed a policy with no CBA and no input from the sector.
I think most people who changed will come back to supporting the current NBN once the hard questions are pressed on Turnbull, and the needle will head back towards the more sensible Labor NBN.

I spent a few months holidaying down there and enjoyed the scenery no end I just don’t like the cold wet weather.

No doubt labours NBN has now made it a lot more attractive for other reasons as you have stated, I could envision a lot others seeing it in the same light and making the move for those same reasons.

Maybe if Tony gives his industrial/media mates a free run for all of their support over the last few years, the temperatures might rise a couple more degree down there and it will get a similar climate to Queensland.

You were held in grandeur when you hounded the Liberals over criticising the Labor party’s NBN policy when their own policy was non existent. Now it has arrived and you have been lambasted for your analysis, and now support for what parts of the Liberal NBN policy that it does get right.

The fact that supporters of Delimiter have done this knowing you go in with both eyes open and not one-eyed is disgusting but altogether not unsurprising. In my eyes your reporting has reached a new high standard and I can only hope the rest of the industry sees this and aspires to it instead of that old “opinion passed off as fact” based reporting which is really just drivel unworthy of my eyes and ears.

I’m also glad you sent out that warning to those who wish to turn this comments section into a socialist/leftist vs conservative battleground. It really was becoming quite intolerable seeing those making arguments based on political leanings and not facts.

Now, as for this polling data. I’d certainly be interested what controls (if any) were set for the group of respondents chosen for these polls. As you alluded to, it is easy to engineer a desired result and given we do not know who commissioned the poll and whether there were any conflicts of interest, it is hard to not take this information with a pinch of salt.

Overall, my position has changed slightly in that while I still support Labor’s NBN policy, I am frustrated with the management of the project itself. Ultimately though, I’m glad that both parties are at least doing something noting the years prior to 2007 (you could even say 2009) when next to nothing was accomplished.

There are two reasons I do not and will not support the Coalition’s second-best NBN.

The first is that the proposal is clearly a stop-gap. It is a short-term fix to a long-term problem, and the fix will end up being a lot more expensive than just doing the proper fix now.

The second problem I have is one of trust. I expect that this will turn out to be a “non-core” promise for Tony Abbott. He will spend a couple of weeks after the election settling into power, and will then turn around and scrap a heap of promises because “the finances are much worse than we were led to believe”. He’ll then sell the existing NBN works to Telstra (oops, I mean the highest bidder), and most of the nation will see absolutely no infrastructure improvements under an Abbott government.

” He’ll then sell the existing NBN works”
A very likely scenario, particularly for a certain bidder with a spare 11billion in the kitty to hand back to Tony towards his budget surplus.
In my area all we can hope for (regardless of FTT N or P implementation) is fixed wireless but I fear we’ll be paying a lot more for less under those circumstances as shareholders reap the benefits.
( I’m not a ‘Leftie’ & have never voted Labor but I sure ain’t supporting Tony unless it’s all written down in blood)

Stephen H
“most of the nation will see absolutely no infrastructure improvements under an Abbott government.”

You will note the Tesltra share price has been improving since the coalition policy launch. Telstra will regain its undisputed monopoly and pretty much crush competition, apart from taxpayer subsidided Greenfields Operators who will build their highly profitable little empires courtesy of the taxayer and Australia’s only chance of decent communications for the decades ahead will be gone as will any chance for real economic development as the colonial industries wither.

“as for this polling data. I’d certainly be interested what controls (if any) were set for the group of respondents chosen for these polls.”

Surveys do not usually involve controls. What typically happens is that interviews ring off a mailing/directory list and interview those prepared to answer. Criteria that are sometimes used are the number of people in specific age group and/or gender.

Incidentally, the younger age group tend to be unrepresented because they are hard to find (often not home) or unwilling to participate.

Relativity
We have issues with housing affordability and transportation in cities, congestion taxes and parking space taxes, pressure from business to get rid of penalties and lower minimum wage, plans and suggestions to spend multiples of the total cost of the NBN on roads and transport solutions both into CBD’s and ring roads.
Smarter to move as much out of CBD’s and Business parks as possible, even move universities out into more regional locations as rental for students and postgraduates who are the backbone of research is becoming unaffordable, the US has what were Regional Centres are University cities with suitable student rentals
For this we need in this information age adequate high capacity broadband, will the GIMPCo provide this.
On the questions for for Turnbull and Conroy a IT person was pointing out the current costs his Campus were paying Telstra and Optus, 10’s of thousands of dollars a month from very tight budgets and also the fact that a major aspect of their IT requirements is actually off campus, many researchers and postgrad students are in more remote areas and need to work with large volumes of data , often from rented premises.

Much more to the NBN than just downloading videos or streaming video, I don’t see the inefficient methodology (ad hoc upgrades dependant on if possible) of the Coalition policy being adequate over the long haul, especially considering we are facing an economic slowdown, which the GBE NBN could cope with

What the polling shows is that Labor was very successful at convincing people that a national broadband network – ie, everyone having access to the internet – was a great idea. Damn near everyone now thinks internet access is akin to water and electricity and gas and sewerage. What they were less successful at was convincing some of them that it needed to be an expensive very high speed fibre-based national broadband network.

What they should be focussing on most now is getting the proposed economic benefits out there – encouraging investment in tech, R&D, bringing business and jobs to Australia as we then have the network to support it, AND a large customer base (90 odd % of the country) with enough bandwidth and stability to support and grow said new tech – of which the coalitions plan will barely do at all. Its good for pretty much downloading movies, which it seems is all they think the internet is for.

That and I will be interested to find out if NBNCo does a cost analysis of the FTTN plan – the coalition will not want it released as i will not look good.

Actually, Labor has struggled to get anyone to believe their idea of high-speed, ubiquitous access to the internet is a good idea.

Prior the the Liberal Party deciding maybe we do need an internet after-all (but it must be slower and cheaper and rely on Telstra-owned assets) every mass media outlet was screaming “oh the huge manatee”.

The ridiculous situation now sees people genuinely appear to believe undoing a broadband rollout over fibre (who’s only real sin is to be a bit slow to pick up momentum) and replace it with copper is an entirely sensible, acceptable notion.

I still cannot find an example where an actively building Fibre network has been stopped in it’s tracks, to regress most of it back to copper.

But, apparently here in Australia we can’t have something that costs ~10% more than the Coalition offering, covering a considerably larger number of citizens; and indeed we have to completely re-engineer it to use technology everyone else is abandoning.

Even more ridiculous, are the admissions that that may not actually be possible for a non-trivial percentage of the constituency, so they may get fibre anyway. Or if you’re in an MDU, you might win fibre bingo. Everyone else rolls onto the superior copper network.

Then we have the situation that the 100mbit figures claimed by Turnbull will have to be “up to” as, outside of lab conditions, VDSL2 isn’t actually real-world capable of hitting 100mbit on tails longer than ~500 meters at present.

There is almost zero technical merit in the Coalition solution; but then it’s not designed to respond to the need to replace an aging network, it’s designed to win votes.

One might suggest the NBN, as it stands, is also designed to win votes. There’s likely truth to that. It just also happens to be the better option, on both counts.

It is becoming evident that the biggest issue with all this is uncertainty.

Many who post here are assuming, speculating or trying to second guess what will happen in the future.

This is because a project of this magnitude cannot and will not occur with difficulties which need to be addressed, no matter the amount of planning.

It is made even more difficult by having the opposition opposing the project at different time for different reasons and now proposing a lesser version (by their own admission), purely based on the timing of the cost and with still many unanswered questions (some which cannot be answered until the time for execution comes).

There is still 4 1/2 months before the election, many things could happen. Nothing is certain in politics. So, speculating what the coalition or Labor will do or what voters will think or do, may assist in relieving some of the frustration or bring reassurance but in the end we will all find out which of the countless possibilities play out.

The population sample size of around 1400 is about the norm for most surveys irrespective of the subject matter, the Newspoll on voting intention is about the same, with a error margin of about plus or minus three percentage points.

For a sample of this size errors will be much more significant from the sampling method. If the sample is not purely random then the sample is suddenly very small and the fundamental statistics falls apart, but the general assumption is that it is a random sample.

Groups like Fairfax/Nielson spend a lot of money to attempt to gain a random sample and that itself limits the sample size as it costs significantly more to sample a large group but the benefit to the statistics does not increase in proportion to the cost.

The problem with internet polls, is that they are “self selected” and can never represent a truly random sample.

I don’t think 60% vs 63% is significant at all if you take into account the error margin is +- 3 percentage points in these poll sample sizes.

The big shift is large support for Coalition policy from LNP voters with 60% support and 26% oppose, vs 43% support and 48% oppose from LNP voters for the Labor NBN.

The reason why I think the Coalition policy support percentage will gradually increase in the coming months from LNP voters is that knowledge of Coalition plans in the ‘A lot’ category is at a low 27% vs 44% for Labor policy, which you would expect on the Coalition policy as it was only released 3 weeks ago.

It’s pretty obvious Abbott doesn’t understand broadband, he at the policy launch was still under the impression the NBN was an entertainment medium.
The NBN isn’t a political debate, it’s technical debate so why are politicians,newspapers and bloggers doing all the debating.
Australia has become a mimic of the US where there is now “conservative” and “liberal” science.
Politicians that head down that track are like bad farts, the pong won’t ever go away.

The chart “forecast average monthly internet bills” is clearly designed to make the alleged forecast bills look far worse than they actually are, it’s clearly deceptive and dishonest. If the chart baseline started at Zero instead of $45 the comparison would not look the deceptive way it’s currently shown.

What is unmistakeable even on Malcolm’s most pessimistic forecasts of the FTTN NBN program it’s only going to cost users an extra $300 PER YEAR IN 2021, 2021, 2021 2021 2021 ! Who cares it’s friggin chicken feed!

It’s a hell of a lot better than the 3 grand upfront Mal wants (or is it 5 grand if it’s 750 m from the node in the UK).

Although this goes against what many journalists are saying (now both parties support an NBN of some sort), I’m quite disappointed that the coalition is supporting the NBN at all. They will spend most of the budget, but the improvements are insignificant. Instead, if a coalition government just stopped the rollout we would be in a much better position.

At some point in the future (either party in power) the project would be restarted and would be completed the way it should be done. Unfortunately, with a FTTN rollout, the money would be spent and we’d be stuck at 25Mb/s (the claims of 50Mb/s are far fetched even in laboratory conditions). I’m guessing that it would then be 10-15 years before a government had the guts to rip out the FTTN and put in the FTTP we are getting now.

Anyhow, to be quite selfish about it, the area I live in or am likely to move to (inner west/east Sydney) will be getting FTTP. There is no way these electorates would be lumbered with huge cabinets down the street. Those things are fine for other people, but I guarantee you that Turnbull’s electorate aren’t getting them.

“What we are going to do is, we are going to invest the money up to the $29.5 billion,” Abbott says. “We believe that is what it will take to get the national broadband network up and running and ready for sale.”

“At the moment there’s nothing to sell. What we need to do is produce an NBN which is saleable. If we’re going to have the sort of respect for taxpayers that we need we’ve got to produce something that is saleable.”

So maybe an upgrade to VDSL2 where possible by the GBE NBNCo , that is why they refuse to discuss eventual upgrade to FTTP, that will be up to the privatised “NBNCo” which will be faced with a higher funding cost, taxpayer assisted competition used to reduce CAPEX of NBNCo, more rapid ROI requirement, higher profit/dividend requirements.

Don’t expect any FTTP upgrades in any but high value areas, so for most of Aust what you will get is all you will ever get – just like it or lump it or pay for your own ad hoc upgrade which with private sector will be far more expensive

We keep forgeting on labour nbn you can have 12/25/50/100/1000 down and 1/2/5/40/400 up or symmetrical like 12/12
Ect
On lib plan 25/50 and no more up I suspect 1/4 no more you do not have a choice if u don’t have $$$$$

On labour plan don’t have $$$$ have 12/1 u got $$$$ have 1000/400

I pay 200 bucks for 1000/400 for those to know this connection from Telstra will cost you fortune

A good read
“Asked whether he supported Labor’s NBN project, Mr Harris said it was a vehicle that could help remove barriers to Australia becoming more closely integrated with the digital economy. “I think the important aspect of that [is] not so much the NBN in itself but the value that it will provide to the economy through public policy change such as structural separation.”

He said the NBN was creating a network that would deliver “neutral, non-discriminatory access” for all companies, where “the incentives really lie with maximising the utility of the network rather than maximising the profitability of the network, if I could make that distinction.”

““What you’ve got to have from a government perspective is to ensure there are not impediments to that quick adaptation for those kinds of lurches forward.”

Mr Harris said multi-factor productivity, a broad measure of efficiency across the economy, was probably “suffering a bit from that”.

“Business have the job of adapting and investing and improving the state of their work forces in order to make profits, [and] governments have the job of removing the impediments, and seeing these forces coming, and giving their economy the advantage of saying ‘I’ve moved this out of your way, here are the opportunities of the future’.”

Mr Harris said the forces of the digital economy were a phenomenal source of change.”

What concerns me is this statement “However, the opposition has now indicated it thinks the commission may be too busy.” So is the Productivity Commission going to do the cost-benefit analysis, or some other “independent organization” do it to get the required result/outcome???

What concerns me is this statement “However, the opposition has now indicated it thinks the commission may be too busy.” So is the Productivity Commission going to do the cost-benefit analysis, or some other “independent organization” do it to get the required result/outcome???

Another point raised
“Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has previously backed the idea of having the commission conduct an analysis after the body expressed doubts about some aspects of the NBN. However, the opposition has now indicated it thinks the commission may be too busy.”

Hmmm. An accountancy firm over West or someone similar can do the job for them, only qualification – bias against the FTTP GBE NBN

In the end it means very little.
Those who were going to vote coalition anyway are even more determined to vote coalition.
Those who were going to vote Labor or Green anyway (who IS this guy) are more determined than ever to vote Green/Labor.

The rest are stilla s wishy wasy as ever.

Based on the numbers though, Abbott is guaranteed effective control of both houses (Senate may require one or two hard right independants) with absolute control of both houses within reach (coalitions has 1/2 plus 1 Senators).

Abbott will do whatever he wants after the election and having basically promised anything and everything (including mutually exclusive things) we will have to wait until after the election to find out what that really is.

The latest version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system will begin rolling out from Wednesday (July 29). And remarkably, Windows 10 will be offered as a free upgrade to those users who already have Windows 7 and 8.1 installed.

Two sizable Queensland Government departments have no central disaster recovery plan, the state’s Auditor-General has found, despite the region’s ongoing struggles with extreme weather conditions that have previously knocked out telecommunications and data centre infrastructure.

The Australian Signals Directorate appears to have released a guide to hardening Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system, three years after the software was released for use by corporate customers, and as Microsoft is slated to release its next upgrade, Windows 10.

Perth-headquartered IT services group ASG this week revealed it had picked up a deal worth at least $35 million over five years with CIMIC Group — the massive construction and contracting group previously known as Leighton Holdings.